


will you have me?

by smc_27



Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:33:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26816659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smc_27/pseuds/smc_27
Summary: And the thing with her and Harry has always been...complicated. Even before they ended up here. Because they’ve always liked each other, she thinks. Always flirted. Always had this forbidden little thing they liked to hide. She thinks she’s liked him since she was 15 and he grinned at her and called her cute on a school trip to the science centre.
Relationships: Harry Bingham/Allie Pressman
Comments: 13
Kudos: 86





	will you have me?

Every time she comes back from the Outpost and sees that things in New Ham are more or less the same, she breathes a literal sigh of relief. Honestly. She’s coming back from a full month out there, sleeping in a tent by herself and farming, learning to hunt now, and just generally working with her hands. They do these shifts in these lengths because it makes the most sense - gives people enough time to become immersed and really feel like there’s no choice _but_ to learn how to do what it takes to survive. Not that people aren’t doing that in town, too, but it’s different. It’s decidedly different. When you have to hunt and gather and grow all your food, there’s really no other option than to do it. 

The quickest path to and from the Outpost is actually through Harry’s neighbourhood. This time, Mickey was on the same assignment as her. She likes him. He’s a weird dude with a heart of gold and he makes her laugh. He’s also one of the chosen few who gets to live at Harry’s house, now. It’s Harry, Mickey, Elle, and Luke, since Elle’s safe, but also doesn’t like to be alone, and since Luke and Helena are no longer a thing. There’s an extra bedroom they’ve turned into something of an archive. Allie tries to not dwell or be heavily involved in what’s being archived and what isn’t. That’s Becca’s realm, and Allie trusts her. 

God, she wonders how much bigger Eden’s gotten in just these few weeks. 

“Come in for tea?” Mickey says as they approach Harry’s driveway. Allie’s heart twists in her chest and she just shakes her head. “Why?”

She smiles. Mickey’s blunt, too. She likes that.

“I should get home. I’m dying for a shower.”

Mickey nods, looks at her. They’ve grown closer, especially closer, after this turn at the Outpost. They do every other month together, and this is their second stint. 

“Can we hug?” he asks, and Allie laughs, nods, and opens her arms. “See you around, Al.”

Allie nods. “See you around, Mick.”

They gave each other nicknames last time, one night around the fire when he’d shown her the bottle of bourbon he’d snuck and said he’d only share with her if she told him the entire story of how everything went down after the attempted coup. 

Harry’s the only one of the three leaders who never goes to the Outpost. Allie makes fun of him for it. Well, she does when they’re speaking. They’re not right now, she doesn’t think. She and Lexie trade off, go back and forth - literally Lexie will head out tomorrow with the new group, after filling Allie in on everything that’s gone on since Allie’s been away. The town has more people and needs more consistent leadership - strength in numbers, or whatever. The Outpost is always 20 people max right now, and having a leader there is just to maintain stability and to ensure all the plans they’ve made are executed. Like this time, Allie and Grizz worked out how to farm the fish so they don’t end up with a barren pond, among other things. 

Harry opens the front door, looks like he’s going somewhere. He stops when he sees them. He knew they were due back today. The rest of the group is a little behind them - Allie and Mickey just walk faster, and also didn’t stop for a break. 

Harry looks like he wants to smile, but won’t. 

Allie should go say hi to him. She waves instead, watches him wave back, and then turns around to walk home. 

She hears Harry say, “Welcome back, man,” to Mickey, and smiles to herself. She knows - Mickey told her - that they’re _friends_. 

She and Harry were friends once, too.

… … …

Friends is an understatement. They were working together, have been working together for months. And the thing with her and Harry has always been...complicated. Even before they ended up here. Because they’ve always liked each other, she thinks. Always flirted. Always had this forbidden little thing they liked to hide. She thinks she’s liked him since she was 15 and he grinned at her and called her cute on a school trip to the science centre. Working with him just confirmed a bunch of things she’d always secretly thought about him. Acting on it...Acting on it felt dangerous and stupid and absolutely the kind of bad idea that could make everything turn upside down. Especially after they were co-leading and people started to count on them for things. But then there was Harry leaning towards her. Harry with his hand on her waist. Harry smiling when he pulled away, as if he’d wanted to kiss her for so long he’d somehow convinced himself it’d never happen. 

But then there was also Harry, months into them doing this thing, asking her why they shouldn’t just tell people. Harry saying it was serious for him, and wasn’t it serious for her? Harry saying he didn’t believe her when she said ‘not yet’. 

(Harry being fucking right, even though she didn’t realize that until days later, when she was in a tent alone and thinking she’d be so much better off if she’d just said yes like she wanted to.) 

She just...She’s scared. Because they _do_ have to be taken seriously, and they’re apart half the time and that isn’t going to change unless they can convince Lexie to stay at the Outpost full time, which feels unfair and unreasonable. The thing that terrifies her is how badly she wants it. Him. To be with him. To figure out how to make it work. 

Her track record with relationships in this place - or anywhere, honestly - is just not great. She can’t put herself and him and everyone else through all this for nothing. 

It just doesn’t feel like nothing. At all. 

… … …

She’s holding Eden, who’s sleeping in her arms, and rocking back and forth with the television on, playing an episode of One Tree Hill because it’s one of the shows they found on DVD and Allie really likes. She’s watched the whole series already and is starting over. Becca was at a meeting with Harry and Luke about conducting a census, or something. Allie thinks it sounds important, but also doesn’t want to be involved until there’s something concrete to wrap her head around. 

Anyway, Sam’s leaning against the door watching her, and then he says, “You’re spoiling her,” like he doesn’t do the same fucking thing. 

Allie rolls her eyes, looks down at the baby. “She’ll be fine.”

Sam laughs, steps further into the room, but doesn’t take the baby from her, so he can’t be too bothered by the treatment Eden’s getting. They keep calling Allie her aunt, but she thinks it’s more accurate that they’re second cousins. Not that it matters. 

Sam and Becca are now absolute pros at signing one handed, out of necessity. Allie is nowhere near as practiced, has apologized to Sam for it, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He just knows when he needs to position himself in a way that he’s able to read her lips. 

Then he says, “Harry’s having a party for his birthday,” in this gentle way and Allie just looks at him. 

Sam is the only person she’s told about her and Harry. Honestly, it’s insane that no one else noticed or asked or assumed anything. She told Sam because he told her about Grizz. He told her about not being Eden’s father, and not knowing who is. And Allie hasn’t told anyone - not even Becca - that she knows that. Sam wasn’t telling her so she could solve a problem or do anything about it. He told her because he needed someone to be able to talk to about it. Allie’s in a similar position with the Harry thing. 

And he doesn’t know what happened, why they ended, but he knows they ended. She’s left wondering if Harry’s spoken to him, too. They’re not close, necessarily, but she knows they’re at least friendly. 

Harry has a soft spot for Eden that Allie absolutely does not let herself think about. Sam told her that at a meeting two weeks ago the baby wouldn’t stop crying and Harry swaddled her in a blanket and held her for like 20 minutes as he paced back and forth, bouncing her in his arms to get her to settle. 

“Are you going?” she asks, because she knows he wants more of a reaction than this, and she doesn’t want to do that. She just…

Look, she’s got a lot of feelings about Harry, and she knows she should talk to him about them, but she’s been catching up on sleep and on what’s been going on around here, and honestly, he hasn’t come around either, has he? It’s been two days and he hasn’t even messaged. She doesn’t want to think that’s a little her fault, too. If she hadn’t left things the way she did, maybe…

No. That’s...It’s _true_ maybe, but also doesn’t think she should have to do all the emotional work, right? 

Sam shrugs, looks at Eden. Right. It depends if Becca wants to go. Allie knows if she does, Sam will stay home with the baby. 

“Are you?”

Allie just looks at him. “I haven’t been invited.”

He purses his lips and looks like he might want to say something to that, but he doesn’t. He just nods, looks at the TV - Allie put the captioning on when he came into the room - and asks her if she still thinks Nathan is the best character on the show. She thinks there’s something kind of pointed about that, too. The first time they watched this, they’d talked about how Harry’s like the Nathan Scott of New Ham. 

Allie...she wishes she could take that back. She thinks Harry’s entirely unlike some rich dude on a teen show. At least he’s a hell of a lot more than that to her. 

… … …

She didn’t think she’d miss him so much. 

It was different at the Outpost. She had too much to do, and there wasn’t even an opportunity to be around him. There was no sneaking into his tent at night. No trying to be quiet. No way to even contact him. It was like cold turkey. It worked, but she’s realizing now that it was only temporarily effective. 

Now she knows he’s nearby, that she could just go over there, or text him, or tell him to come over in the night like he was doing before. She could, but she can’t, you know? She can’t just pretend everything’s fine. He’ll hate that. She owes him a conversation. 

But here she goes, just assuming he wants that.

… … …

She knows when his birthday is, so it’s not like it hadn’t crossed her mind already. But then when he walks into the caf for lunch, someone starts singing and he looks really good and embarrassed. It makes Allie smile and look down at her soup. Mickey’s shaking Harry’s shoulders, standing behind him. She thinks Harry probably loves it even if he’s trying to get everyone to stop. 

Harry goes off to sit with Luke when Mickey comes to sit with her. 

“Party tonight,” Mickey says, and Allie just hums in response. “I know you and Harry don’t like each other, but you should come. It’s gonna be fun.”

Allie digs her fist into her thigh under the table and…

 _Fuck_. They don’t like each other? That’s not accurate at all. It’s not. 

“I don’t know. Harry’s parties always get out of hand.”

Mikey blows on his soup to cool it down, drops some crushed crackers in and stirs them around. “That’s the best part.”

She laughs, remembers the last party she was at with Harry, remembers the way he’d looked at her then, too. She thinks she’s liked him at least this much since. Even when she hated him, there was _this_ , too. 

She glances at Harry across the room, the little smile on his lips. He looks up just in time to catch her eye. She refuses to look away first, and he does it after only a couple seconds. Allie goes back to her soup and thinks they should actually address things before anyone notices they’re not actually talking to each other. 

Like, they’re both leading here right now, and for the first time, they’re not even talking about what’s going on. They’re supposed to meet in two days. That feels like ages. 

It feels awful to have to be happy that he’s not looking at her with outward contempt. She wants more than that. She should’ve realized it sooner. 

… … …

Since it’s the middle of summer and it’s roasting out, properly too warm for layers or sleeves or anything like that, Allie pulls on one of her summer dresses, feels like she should probably wear a bra but doesn’t because the straps are skinny and she also just doesn’t care. The black and white brushstroke pattern is cute on her, and the little ruffle at the top makes it feel a bit fancier than it is for just a cotton dress. She uncaps a tube of pink lipgloss and swipes some on, and then pulls her hair into a ponytail because it’s so warm outside that she knows she’s going to want it off her neck as soon as she gets outside. 

Becca’s in the kitchen fixing herself a cup of tea when Allie walks down. She looks surprised. “You’re going?”

Allie shrugs her shoulder. “Feels rude not to make an appearance.”

Becca smiles like she might know more than Allie’s even told her, but it doesn’t matter.

You know in movies when someone walks into a party and it’s like time slows down a little and the sound goes all wobbly as they look around and take stock of what’s going on? This is as close as Allie’s ever come to that feeling. And that’s counting when she was hallucinating at Thanksgiving last year and was barely coherent. 

She knows not everyone is here. She’s sure no one would be turned away - it’s weird when everyone knows everyone and there’re people left off the guest list. She’s also sure that the music being cranked this loud is definitely Mickey’s doing. Allie smiles a little. This feels like a stupid, irresponsible, high school party. It definitely feels like the last party she came to at this house. 

She pushes her way through the crowd to the kitchen in search of a drink. Allie knows Harry’d appealed to the council for a stocked bar. The only way they’d approve it is if there were two designated, sober, bartenders. So Luke and Shoe are standing there mixing drinks and taking orders at the kitchen island. The sink’s full of ice with bottles of white wine chilling. There’s a cooler full of beer, and a bunch of assorted alcohol. She doesn’t even know what she wants. 

She wants to know where Harry is. She wants to see him before she loses her nerve. It’s happening already. She thinks it was maybe dumb to come here and just assume he’d want her to. 

This is what he wanted like a month and a bit ago. Maybe he doesn’t want it anymore. 

Luke hands her a glass of white wine when she tells him she’s not picky. They’re using little plastic cups. Like the little cheap wine cups you get at the dollar store, or whatever. The plastic around the rim is sharp and the wine is too cold and Allie keeps looking for Harry. 

She walks through to the backyard. There’s practically a cloud of weed smoke hovering in the air and it makes her laugh. Who even has weed now? She knows Grizz is growing a hidden little patch of it at the Outpost, so it’s no surprise someone else has the same thought in New Ham. 

Harry’s standing across the pool with his arm around Kelly, a red cup in his hand, and Allie just…

She wants to run. 

She turns, looking for a place to set her drink down so she can go, but then Helena’s calling out for her, and Harry’s looking at her when he hears her name, and she takes a sip as she watches him untangle himself from Kelly a little. It’s subtle, but Allie thinks it’s poignant. 

She knows he’s not with Kelly. She knows Kelly’s not with anyone. And maybe it’s fucking stupid to be jealous of Kelly ever, but especially where guys are concerned. It’s just a bit of a bruise, okay? There’s Will and there’s Harry, and somehow there’s always Allie and Kelly all mixed up in that. 

Allie can practically feel him watching her as she walks over to Helena. Helena seems a little deep in her drinks, her cheeks flushed prettily and her skin glowing with a layer of sweat that somehow makes her look summery and carefree.

They strike up a conversation in which Helena’s saying it’s wild that this used to be their lives, you know? Allie just laughs and says she can’t relate. She wasn’t regularly hanging out with the popular, rich kids. Helena looks guilty for a second, and then comments about Allie’s 13th birthday party, which was this trip to the apple orchard for a haunted wagon ride, or whatever, and a bunch of the girls went and screamed the entire time. Allie remembers that one so well. It was the last big party she had. After that, they were more lowkey. Because Cassandra was sick and because Allie was scared to ask for anything. 

Harry comes over by himself, with his cup topped up and a smooth grin on his face. He puts his arm around Helena now, and Allie thinks maybe he’s _trying_ to get to her? 

“Surprised to see you here, Allie.” She shrugs at his comment, and then he adds, “Around all these people.”

Yeah, _that’s_ a dig. He’s still mad. Or he’s mad enough to want to try to make some kind of point, or whatever. As much as she doesn’t appreciate it, she knows they both sort of liked the secrecy thing they had going. The thing where they could make inside jokes and references to how well they knew each other without anyone else knowing that’s what they were doing. Harry liked that until he apparently didn’t anymore.

“I wasn’t sure I was invited,” she says instead, eyes on his. Helena scoffs at that, but Harry just looks at Allie. “You didn’t tell me about it yourself.” He sighs, pulls his arm from around Helena, looks uncomfortable. “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks,” he says, and god, she’d really love to make fun of him for how low his shirt is unbuttoned. But then she notices his eyes drift down even as he takes a drink. He’s checking her out. She won’t pretend this isn’t what she wanted when she chose this dress. 

She says, “I got you something,” even though that is 100% a lie and it just puts this cute, confused look on his face. “Can we talk? It sort of…” She needs to find words before she loses her nerve. “It’s a gift that requires an explanation.”

He blinks, nods, and then Helena’s taking the cue and wandering off and Harry’s still looking at Allie. She doesn’t want to talk out here in front of everyone, or where anyone could see. 

But that’s the whole fucking problem, isn’t it? She’s scared and wants to hide everything. He’s ready and doesn’t give a shit what people think. Maybe talking about this right here is some kind of compromise. He at least looks like he’s not going to move until she tells him to. She kind of digs the stubbornness of that, too. Like, a lot. It makes her feel more brave. 

“What’s one thing you want for your birthday?” she asks, then takes a sip of her drink. Harry’s eyes drop again, to her chest, she thinks, and _yeah_ , she likes that, too. 

He grins a little, leans closer to her. “I’m not sure how you want me to answer that, Allie.” 

Fuck. 

“First thing that comes to mind?” she suggests. 

Harry smiles, seems to be catching on, raises his brow like he’s a little impressed. “What if I say you?”

She bites her bottom lip and tries not to smile too big. Harry takes a breath. Allie moves closer, looks down, then back up at him. They’re close enough now that anyone paying attention will not be able to at all convince themselves there’s not something more going on. She doesn’t really care. He still wants her. He _still wants her_. 

“Harry,” she says, and he’s still just watching her. He sips his drink. “I’m sorry.”

He pauses. Seems like he needs more. Actually, no. She thinks he knows exactly what she’s apologizing for, but just her saying those words isn’t enough. “For what?”

“Leaving things the way we did,” she tells him, looks up at him from under her lashes. “I...maybe you were right.”

He’s trying not to smile. She can see it. He keeps his eyes on her as he sips his beer. “I was what now?”

She wants to scream. She wants to take him upstairs. She wants to tell him she’s tired of being scared of what it means to be with him. 

“You were right,” she repeats. “I missed you. I do miss you, and it didn’t have to be that way.”

He tilts his head just a little. Allie thinks he looks sort of terrifyingly good right now, his eyes on her like this, his hair a little messy, his beer in his hand by his thigh, his stupid linen shirt unbuttoned to the middle of his chest. 

“What do you miss?” He asks it quietly, like her answer really matters. Like if all she wants is sex and sneaking around again, that’s not good enough. 

She says, “Everything,” and he looks at her through his lashes. Maybe that’s not good enough, either. “I like you. I miss talking to you, and making you laugh.” She looks down, because she thinks she’s going to get what she wants here - what they both want - but she thinks he wants a level of emotional vulnerability that’s making her uncomfortable. “I don’t know. I just miss you, Harry. And I think it’s fucking stupid to pretend like we don’t both feel the same way.”

“ _We_ weren’t pretending,” he says, and when she looks up at him again, he’s grinning insufferably. It makes her clench her jaw. Why is he insistent on making this so difficult? “You were pretending.”

He’s not wrong. She knows that. She can also tell by how softly he said it that it really hurt him. She gets it. 

“Well, I’m not anymore,” she says gently. His lips twist a little. She tries not to smile.

He sips his beer. Yeah, he’s really just trying to play this cool. If she didn’t know him as well as she does, she’d almost buy it.

“Is that so?”

Allie rolls her eyes, takes a breath, is sort of tired of playing his game. She moves forward quickly, puts her hand on the back of his neck and drags him down so she can kiss him. He lets out a sound, but then his arm is banding around her waist to keep her close, and she thinks he might be smiling as he makes the kiss a little softer. He knows she likes that. She’s told him. There’s something really sort of remarkable about him - _him_ , specifically - being so gentle with her when they’re together.

This is what he wanted. Not to hide and sneak around and act like their positions had to dictate this choice. They don’t have to do any of that. Allie’s just bummed that it took her a while to realize it, that they’ve both spent this last month thinking about it. She wonders if he thought they were really over, too, or if when she got back they’d talk. God, does that even matter? 

When they part, she’s looking up at him and he’s smiling at her like he can’t believe she did that. There are definitely people around paying attention. It’s not that Allie doesn’t care. She absolutely cares. She just cares about this more. 

“Was that my present?”

She feels something familiar deep in her stomach, shakes her head subtly. “No,” she tells him, and maybe that’s a lie. Maybe all this is her present. But she also knows Harry, knows he’ll appreciate it if she makes this just a little dirty, just for him. She’s not going to pretend she doesn’t like that, too. _Those_ kinds of secrets are ones she likes having with him. Not a single other person needs to know.

“It’s not?”

She feels his hand slide along her back so he’s just holding her hip, presses his fingers in a little like he’s reminding her he remembers she likes that, or something. 

“You should really see what I have on under this dress.”

He breathes a laugh. “Not much, from what I can tell,” he says, voice all low. 

She bites back her smile, blinks quickly a few times, and she can literally see him brace himself for the smartass thing he knows she’s going to say. (God, when did they get to _know_ each other like this?)

“Well, if you’ve figured it out, there’s no need to…”

“That’s not what I said,” he interrupts, then reaches up, pushes the end of her ponytail off her shoulder. “Are you staying?”

What she wants to ask is how they’re supposed to go to bed together if they’re not in the same place, but what she actually does is nod her head and love the smile he rewards her with. 

“Can I have something other than cheap wine?” she asks, and it’s stupid, maybe, but she knows he’s got a full bar of high end alcohol locked away in his dad’s study, and he’s the only one with the key. 

She knows this because she’s the only one he’s ever let in there. She knows _that_ because he told her, shortly after everyone else moved out. She remembers looking through the bookshelves and running her fingers over leather bound copies of the classics her parents would buy her and Cassandra in paperback from Barnes & Noble. Harry had poured her some expensive gin and they sat there on this obnoxious leather sofa talking about literature as he played with her hair. 

Harry says, “You can have whatever you want,” and his _tone_ makes that sound dirty, but she definitely can tell he doesn’t solely mean it that way. 

She moves her hand to his chest, plays with one of the buttons he hasn’t bothered doing up. “Wanna kiss me again in front of all your stupid friends?”

He laughs, then nods, doesn’t call her on the fact that she definitely was the one kissing him first. 

As they walk back into the house, he doesn’t have his arm around her like he has with the other girls. 

No, he has her hand tucked into his, their palms pressed together, his head high like he’s daring anyone to say something about them. Allie sets her cup of bad wine on the island as they pass through the kitchen, then puts her hand on his back between his shoulders just how he likes. He says it calms him. Grounds him. Makes him feel cared for. When he glances at her over his shoulder, she almost thinks he might…

Maybe she might, too.


End file.
